I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

Yes I've thought of that myself.

Without the need for difference or a need to always follow the herd breeds complacency, mediocrity, and a lack of imagination

I like the desperation behind needing, so very badly, to fixate on simple slips of the tongue in the hope that it will distract us from noticing that McCain frequently doesn't seem to know what the hell is going on.

There's a pretty big difference between occasionally getting a word wrong and being vague on the particulars of how the world works. Iran? Iraq? al Qaeda? Sunni? Shia? Rich? Poor? Prosperity? Recession? Houses?

It'll be fun to watch some folks around here breathlessly report every time Obama says "cake" when he means "pie", certain that his "gaffes" are dooming his campaign, while remaining strangely unruffled by the next time McCain can't tell our enemies from our allies.

Exactly! Once again as many have said here we've heard a lot of negative press about the democrats. Why the hell would we want to vote for McLame?

Some reasons please.

Without the need for difference or a need to always follow the herd breeds complacency, mediocrity, and a lack of imagination

Update: Anthony makes a good point in comments, saying that Palin's "selection could be used to attack McCain for being disingenuous when he says Obama lacks the experience to be commander-in-chief." It would be a bit hard to center the campaign on experience when you're a 71-year-old man putting an Alaska governor with two years in office a heartbeat away from the presidency. In any case, today is a travel day for me, so if McCain nastily decides to announce while I'm on a plane, consider this a McCain VP open thread.

It doesn't seem like a particularly strategic pick other than to rebut the historic significance of yesterday.

The Republicans are capable of some pretty mystifying mental jujitsu, but it's going to raise some eyebrows if the McCain camp keeps raising the "inexperience card." Really? You're putting a small-state (pop wise) Governor who's been in office for a year and a half a heartbeat away from the Presidency when the top of the ticket is a 70+ year old two-time cancer survivor?

Was the gambit here that McCain hopes to lock in the disappointed Hillary supporters, thinking they'll vote for just any woman on any ticket?

I don't know know much about this Palin, but at first blush I get a strong feeling that McCain just killed off whatever chance he had of winning this election. The experience argument against Obama? Gone. The votes from people who won't vote for a black man, many of whom are likely to be as sexist as they are racist? Gone.

Maybe this move shifts a few more independents McCain's way, but my gut feeling is that this strategy just isn't going to work out.

You're putting a small-state (pop wise) Governor who's been in office for a year and a half a heartbeat away from the Presidency when the top of the ticket is a 70+ year old two-time cancer survivor?

That small state govenor took on corruption from established Republican interests and beat them into the ground.
McCain is possibly thinking that Cheney's neo-cons will have to be rooted out and slapped down hard.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shetline

Was the gambit here that McCain hopes to lock in the disappointed Hillary supporters, thinking they'll vote for just any woman on any ticket?

I think this shows that McCain does understand electoral calculations.
Hillary's hard-core might stay home, but they were never going to vote GOP anyway.

That small state govenor took on corruption from established Republican interests and beat them into the ground.
McCain is possibly thinking that Cheney's neo-cons will have to be rooted out and slapped down hard.

Yes because the point to drive home is that if it doesn't qualify someone to be a heartbeat away, then they certainly shouldn't have the job in the first place.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShawnJ

It doesn't seem like a particularly strategic pick other than to rebut the historic significance of yesterday.

The Republicans are capable of some pretty mystifying mental jujitsu, but it's going to raise some eyebrows if the McCain camp keeps raising the "inexperience card." Really? You're putting a small-state (pop wise) Governor who's been in office for a year and a half a heartbeat away from the Presidency when the top of the ticket is a 70+ year old two-time cancer survivor?

So I guess the argument would be that representing Delaware is some big state experience? I'm all for these arguments. They disqualify three and qualify one. That would leave McCain standing alone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shetline

Was the gambit here that McCain hopes to lock in the disappointed Hillary supporters, thinking they'll vote for just any woman on any ticket?

I don't know know much about this Palin, but at first blush I get a strong feeling that McCain just killed off whatever chance he had of winning this election. The experience argument against Obama? Gone. The votes from people who won't vote for a black man, many of whom are likely to be as sexist as they are racist? Gone.

Maybe this move shifts a few more independents McCain's way, but my gut feeling is that this strategy just isn't going to work out.

Of course there is always the possibility that America isn't the insanely sexist and racist place you imagine and that the pick will give him a huge bounce because she represents being an outsider, is another fresh new face that will learn while the experience hits the grounding running on day one. That she represents a historic first with regard to being vice-president if McCain wins.

Wow...very typical of McCain...with our economy flailing...don't choose someone with vast experience in fixing major corporations, is eloquent, presidential, and has a proven brilliant ecomomic mind in Governor Romney...choose a governor, who happens to be a woman in an attempt to appease and garner votes of disenfranchised Hillary supporters. While sounds like decent theory on paper, I believe the execution of this will backfire because...

I don't think her lack of experience counters McCain's same charge against Obama. After all in McCain's ticket the #1 person has a long career and the #2 person doesn't. In Obama's ticket the #1 person has a short career and the #2 person doesn't. McCain will point that out and voters will get it.

Other than a vagina I don't think she adds much to McCain's ticket. He didn't knock it out of the park with this choice. So that's good. I agree that putting an attractive (for politics) woman next to McCain does look a little creepy. Obama can get MoveOn and other 527s to act on that angle.

The fact that she's even now being investigated for using her office to punish her ex-brother-in-law during a nasty divorce from her sister, while serving as governor of the state with the most corrupt Republican party apparatus in the country (which is quite an achievement) doesn't strike me as a huge upside.

This really does seem to be kind of a desperation move, designed to shake things up and get some of the "old, tired and out of touch" off of McCain.

I expect to hear about how Palin is totally into texting and iTunes and all that internet whatchamacallit.

We can play little semantic games about who has the experience, but the fact remains that in Obama we have a candidate of enormous charisma who exudes confidence and know-how, with a running mate with an unassailable nuts-and-bolts resume. I don't think that even their enemies doubt that these guys are ready and capable of rolling up their sleeves and getting some work done, come January.

In McCain we have a candidate who exudes irritability and vagueness on the details, with little to talk about, apparently, beyond his status as a former POW and some childish sniping at Obama, who now has a running mate with almost no experience, no appearance of having even considered the big picture, and a built-in reminder of recent Republican tendencies towards using elected office as means for furthering personal agendas.

I do very much savor, however, the idea that, for Nick, being a historic, fresh-faced new comer is abruptly a good thing.

They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.

It would be sexist, if someone said she was just a 1985 runner-up Miss Alaska. But I'm saying that would be wrong! There's definitely more to her than being 1985 runner-up Miss Alaska! I'm a feminist, trying to defend her against sexist attacks against her for being a runner-up Miss Alaska!

This really does seem to be kind of a desperation move, designed to shake things up and get some of the "old, tired and out of touch" off of McCain.

That's the real danger, that this becomes the media narrative: Biden is a solid choice that reflects well on Obama's seriousness, and Palin is a political hail-mary that underscores McCain's desperation.

Like it or not, John McCain is a man who has not always been in the best of health. He's made "experience" the cornerstone of his campaign. So does he really believe -- does he really want all of us to believe -- that Palin is ready to be President of the United States, in the event something were to happen to him? Based on what?

I don't think it's a wrong choice, I think it's an unserious -- even fairly offensive -- choice. McCain isn't even officially his party's nominee yet, and he's already treating his presumptive office with disdain, and making executive decisions that seem like they've been phoned in or made in a panic.

Don't tell me it's his "brave" choice because she's a woman -- the Republican Party has many women more qualified for the Vice Presidency. I don't agree with them on issues, but they'd be more qualified. This choice is indeed akin to choosing Quayle -- it smacks of choosing someone because they won't get in the way, or because all the other potential candidates were too personally threatening. It's just a bad choice, period.

I think that's the thing that come across-- it just sort of seems like an unserious choice, not just because that it seems based entirely on political calculation, but because even that calculation is half-assed. It's like "Here, a winger for the wingers and a lady for the ladies. Happy now?"

As the right likes to say, it goes to judgement, and it suggests that in matters of judgement McCain doesn't really give a shit.

They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.